Sunday, 18 May 2014

Advice #1

Hi lovelies, it's been a
while ~ how are you?

So after a long time of
not doing any blog posts, I decided to do a little email competition where you
send in an email and I will pick one out of about 200 and reply to it, and
focus my blog post on that. I have changed the names in the emails and the town,
for safety reasons.

email sent to me on the
6th of May -

Hello
Indy,

I think I understand what you meant before, my bad. Lately I feel
extremely afraid of what will happen in the future. I'm afraid things won't
play out the way I want them to. I can only hope I'll live my life to the
fullest I guess. I'm from a small town in *Neverland*, and I can't wait to
leave. But what if that never happens? There aren't any opportunities here.
It's all poverty and many people I know are on drugs. I guess what I'm wondering
is: Do you have any advice for someone who is afraid things are not going to
work out?

Thanks,
J....

Hey J,

My font is a bit messed up
– so I will apologize about that. This email particularly spoke up to me
because of I can picture you writing this, faced with all these teenage
challenges, that other people are glorifying and saying that ‘it will be okay’.
I hate that sugar coat bullshit. When I go to someone for advice, I really don’t
want to be told something I already know. Lets just say you’re 16? You feel
like you have your whole life mapped out in front of you, and you don’t know
what to do. I know how it feels for people to have these expectations of you.
But the crazy thing is that, realistically – you can do anything you please.
Shave your head, get a tattoo, get the highest in the class, maybe even honor
roll, catch a plane to Australia. I don’t know what, but I know that everything
is out there waiting for you. Life doesn’t start when you leave school, get
your own apartment, get your first proper job. It started the day you first
entered the world, the first time you looked around and realized you were
understood, the time you got your first kiss, stayed out til 4am basking in the
stomach-flipping feeling of being a rebellious teenager. You’re afraid things
aren’t going to work out, yet you can’t know if you don’t try. If you want
something badly enough, and you do the best you can do at school, and you treat
people with kindness, do a good deed a day, or give something back to the world
when you have had the shittiest day, you will get there.

“Believe in yourself, and
the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard, and
there is nothing you cannot accomplish.”

“Don't let fear or
insecurity stop you from trying new things. Believe in yourself. Do what you
love. And most importantly, be kind to others, even if you don't like them.”

In the wise words of
Russell Brand,

“It's difficult to believe
in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in
fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the
world is within you.”